The former world No.1 and major winner Day said it was emotional seeing sisters in his home state of Queensland whom he hadn’t seen since before his mother, Dening, passed away in 2022. He last competed in Australia at the Open in 2017. Before, that in was the 2013 Australian Open and the World Cup of Golf, which he won at Royal Melbourne.

“I think so,” Day, 37, said after his round when asked if wanted to return to Australia.” Obviously, with the way that the (PGA Tour) schedule used to be (in the US), it used to be harder with the wraparound season, but now, because we’re going from January to September, it definitely makes it easier to to come back. And obviously you got to play well during the year to so you don’t have to play in the fall. But I definitely see myself coming back.”

The PGA Tour’s wraparound season began in 2013-2014 when the FedEx Cup season began in September immediately after the previous campaign ended. Top players like Day had to play several events in the autumn or “Fall” series or risk falling behind on the FedEx Cup points tally. The PGA Tour did away with that last year, although the autumn series is still played but focused on lower-ranked players trying to keep their cards or improve their PGA Tour status for the next year.

“I think it just gives us more time to take off, because the year went so long,” 13-time PGA Tour winner Day said. “If you needed to work on something in the offseason, you never had any time, really, because if you played the fall, you could play all the way up until [late November] and into December.

“With the way the schedule is now, I can definitely see myself come back more often… just because it gives me the opportunity to be able to take time off early and then use these tournaments to kind of springboard myself into the new year.”